Effect of solvent on the development of Poly(2-ethyl-2-oxazoline) nanofibrous scaffolds using electrospinning technique for biomedical applications.

The selection of a biomaterial plays a very important role for the development of scaffolds for biomedical applications. Amidst, the development of nanofibrous scaffolds through electrospinning technique by selecting a suitable polymer is of more importance. Poly (2-ethyl-2-oxazoline) (PEOX) is one among the selected polymers that can be employed for electrospinning for the development of scaffolds for biomedical applications. PEOX is a water-soluble polymer which is highly desirable for biomedical applications. At the same time, PEOX is soluble in the mixture of organic solvents as well. In view of this, the present study is the preliminary study of using PEOX for the development of scaffolds by using electrospinning technique and to check its potentiality for biomedical application like tissue engineering for the future research. The PEOX scaffolds were fabricated using electrospinning process using water and organic solvents, and the effect of solvent was studied on the morphology and physical properties of the developed scaffolds. The Scanning Electron Microscopic results of the scaffolds showed a uniform nanofibrous structure in case of aqueous PEOX solution, whereas microfibrous structure was obtained for organic solvent. Wettability of the scaffolds was observed by contact angle measurement, which revealed that the hydrophilicity of the PEOX (aq.) scaffold was higher with the contact angle of 55.2° as compared to PEOX (org.) scaffold with the contact angle of 70.38°. Further, the mechanical strength of the scaffolds was calculated in terms of Young's modulus values and it was observed that the PEOX (org.) demonstrated a higher tensile strength of 1.9 MPa compared to PEOX (aq.) scaffold with 1.02 MPa respectively. The results thus clearly conclude that the nature of solvents greatly affect the electrospinning process of PEOX and thereby the properties of the developed PEOX scaffolds based on the solvent. Further, we can say that the developed PEOX scaffolds possess suitable properties to be employed for biomedical applications like tissue engineering.